England's XI steps to salvation

1 TCCB becomes ECB Back in 1997, when Ashes defeats were part of national life, the cumbersome Test and County Cricket Board made way for the more contemporary England and Wales Cricket Board. The change was more than cosmetic and even if Lord MacLaurin, the new chairman, did not impress everyone with his blueprint Raising the Standard, his determination to turn the national team into cricket's focal point was the beginning of a revolution that should have begun years before. Why, England players were even allocated their own rooms on tour!

2 Nasser's tears In August 1999 Nasser Hussain, after his first series as captain, stood on The Oval balcony his as own fans booed him. Defeat by a mediocre New Zealand side had left England bottom of the unofficial world rankings and Hussain was in tears. It was not an experience he wanted to repeat. "The booing made me more determined," he wrote in his autobiography. "I knew how much the people cared and how it was up to me to try and turn things round."

3 Duncan Fletcher The appointment of Duncan Fletcher changed the atmosphere of English cricket. Panic was not part of his vocabulary, which was just as well when England slumped to 2 for 4 at Johannesburg in his first Test in charge. The slash-and-burn selection policies of the 1990s yielded to a more sensible kind of ruthlessness - one in which Chris Adams was given a full five-Test series before being ditched for good. Fletcher was fair, attentive and had an uncanny eye: Marcus Trescothick and Michael Vaughan might never have won a cap under the old regime.

4 Central contracts Mike Atherton openly envied Hussain because his captaincy coincided with the era of central contracts. Introduced in 2000, they shifted power from county to country and allowed the fast bowlers plenty of down time between Tests. The system was not perfect - Chris Schofield was among the first batch of 12 recipients - but it helped turn England into the 19th county. After the Ashes win at Trent Bridge, Ashley Giles summed up the benefits: "When it's tight, you know what the other guys are thinking."

5 Lord's 2000 England were on the brink of going 2-0 down to West Indies after conceding a 133-run lead on first innings. But the management had instilled a growing toughness. West Indies were skittled for 54 and England went on to win by two wickets. Two months later Hussain was celebrating their first series victory over West Indies for 31 years and the bandwagon was rolling. It was England's single, most crucial Test win under Fletcher.

6 The forward-press It's not the sexiest manoeuvre in cricket but for the evolution of the England team it might just have been the most important. A Fletcher brainwave, it was essentially a means of playing spinners with a non-committal shuffle and soft hands and helped convince England's batsmen that success was possible on the subcontinent. Wins in Pakistan and Sri Lanka in 2000-01 were the proof.

7 Freddie Andrew Flintoff was going nowhere fast when his agents Neil Fairbrother and Chubby Chandler spelled out some home truths at the end of the 2001 summer. Flintoff listened, reflected, then rang up Fletcher to request a place on that winter's Academy trip in Australia. When Craig White admitted on the senior tour of India that he had lost pace through injury, Fletcher summoned Flintoff. He took the new ball in the second and third Tests and, by and large, has never looked back. Not bad for a fat lad.

8 Troy Cooley Cooley's CV was not flattering. His 54 first-class wickets for Tasmania had cost 61 each, so eyebrows were raised when England made him their first full-time bowling coach in May 2003. Since then the players have not stopped singing his praises. Technically and temperamentally he suits them down to the ground. "He asks the right questions," says Matthew Hoggard. "He knows how to motivate us."

9 Hussain quits The resignation of Hussain after the Edgbaston Test against South Africa in July 2003 looked selfish at the time, yet turned out to be anything but. Hussain, instinctive to the last, had sensed a change of mood in the dressing-room after Vaughan had captained England to victory in the one-day NatWest Series. The stick had been replaced by the carrot. Vaughan took a while to bed in, then embarked on one of the most successful sequences in English history.

10 Fitness The temptation must have been to treat the trip to Bangladesh in the autumn of 2003 as an extended net. But Vaughan had a plan. "That trip was basically a fitness regime," he says. "I just felt we were picking up a lot of injuries at key periods in Test series. The fitness aspect of the English game was being overlooked." Ignoring the moans of some of the older players and inspired by the team physiologist, Nigel Stockill, Vaughan turned England into the lean, mean fighting machine we now take for granted.

11 Attack To take on Australia, England decided not to be too English, a process Vaughan himself set in motion with three big hundreds down under in 2002-03. In the build-up to the Ashes Vaughan promised time and again to respect Australia, not fear them. It was a message that seeped through the ranks and when Steve Harmison hit Justin Langer with the second ball of the Ashes, it was game on. It had taken a few years to get there but the culture of defeatism had well and truly evaporated.